This is ridiculous, I'm really at my ends with McAfee, the only reason I haven't done everything I can to purge it and its insidious tendrils from my laptop is because I have yet to get a virus or any other malicious programs, unless of course McAfee is just taking my money and not telling me about my infested computer.

Anyways, I've just about had it, and my primary cause of frustration is the frequent, apparently massive, updates that take anywhere from 20-30+ minutes to finish. In that time, not only has my laptops battery run out (It has a crappy battery), but I pretty much can't do anything and just end up staring at my homepage wondering whether it will be a "routine" 5-10 minute update, or if I should go take a nap or something. I've taken to using my iPod (touch) to do things like quickly check my email, or browse the internet because I know if I use my laptop, it's going to put me to sleep before I can even open firefox.

Seriously, is this normal? I know pretty much everyone (it seems) has complaints about McAfee taking up large resources, etc etc. But 30+ minutes to update? Does it just routinely redownload and reinstall itself for kicks just to make me angry? Now, my main source of internet is wi-fi, so I understand that unlike a direct connection, my computer goes and checks for updates for everything when go online (everything all at once), but it is ALWAYS McAfee that hijacks my computer. Sometimes I wonder if it might just be better to ditch it, since it acts like a virus itself half the time anyways.

McAfee updates that happens on a daily basis are normally less in size . You might find updates happening for a longer period once in a while for any major changes required for the products.Do you get any specific information on which products are getting updated?

Less in size? I'd say the average time for McAfee to install whatever it is that it's installing (It doesn't tell me by the way, it never has and I doubt it ever will) is around 10-15 minutes. And for the past couple weeks, it's run into the 20-30 minute range.

It's not an isolated one time issue, it is basically every time I connect my laptop to the internet. I've taken to ctrl+alt+deleteing the updater if I want to just check my email or something real quick because if I don't then I'm looking at a big time commitment.

Even now it's currently installing, for the past 15 minutes or so, taking up a vast portion of memory, it took me forever just to login to this page.

In the past there were small updates that didn't affect me all that much, but for the past several months (to a year maybe), I've pretty much dreaded taking my laptop anywhere for wi-fi because I know it will quickly become unusable.

Would you be connected to the internet always or do you connect the laptop to the internet occasionally. if so updates that are pending for that period that you might have not connected would be installing and size of the update will increase.